The Mammoth: Endangered Species or Vanishing Race?

JEMCS 1.1 (Spring/ Summer2001) The Mammoth: Endangered Species or Vanishing Race? GordonSayre January2000, ranchers,ecologists,conservationists, and federalland managersgatheredfora conference in Douglas, Arizona,concerningthe Malpai borderlands,a regionof the Sonoran desertstraddlingMexico,NewMexico,and Arizona.1 Manyat theconference shareda belief thatfire suppressionand realestatedevelopment, notranching, are thebiggestthreatsto regionalecosystems,and thatpracticalconservationsolutions mustinvolve private landowners and shouldaccommodatewildlifehabitatalongsidecattlegrazingand otheragricultural uses. Themostnovelproposalinthisnewpragmatism was offered by Paul S. Martin,a professor emeritusofGeosciences at the University ofArizona.Inhispresentation, Martin advocated"reintroducing " theelephantto thedesertSouthwest. The browsing (thatis, tree-and shrub-eating) ofelephantscould balance thegrazingofcattle,he explained,helpingtorestoregrasslands thathave been decimatedbydecades ofranching. Citingstudies ofelephantsand cattleinAfrica bycolleagueDavidWestern, Martinsuggestedthatbison and mammoths(elephants'close relatives)mayhave sustaineda similarecologicalrelationship inprehistoric America:"introduced elephantsmight havea great deal toteachus aboutthedynamic natureofwildnessinAmerica in evolutionary time. In the absence ofelephants inferences madeon thedynamicsofAmerican vegetation typescouldbe as one-sidedas thosemadein theabsence offire" ("Bring Back the Elephants"14).Martin recommended thelowerColoradoand Rio Granderivervalleysas starting points,whereelephantscould forageon alien Tamarix and Bermudagrasses thathave choked out nativeflora. His proposalwas mentionedin the July/August2000 NatureConservancy membership magazine. "Reintroduce"the elephant? Most Americansthinkof elephantsas living onlyinAfrica and Asia,and as beingcreatures 64 TheJournal forEarlyModern Cultural Studies of thejungle, not the desert. But this prejudicebetraysour shortevolutionary memories and thestatusmostofus shareas non-natives ofourcontinent.As Martin putsit,ourideas about Americannatureare limitedbya "'ColumbianCurtain'[that]is unrealisticin evolutionary time"("Bring Back theElephants"5). The AfricanElephant,or Loxodonta,and the Asian Elephant, Elephas, are the onlysurviving generaofthe taxonomicorder Proboscidea.Mammoths (Mammuthus) and mastodons(Mammut) werealso membersofthisorder,and dozensofskeletonsfound in theAmericanSouthwestprovethatthesegenerawereplentifulthereas recently as 11,000yearsago.2 GaryHaynes,a leadingpaleoecologicalexperton mammoth and mastodonanatomy and behavior,has builtmuchofhis knowledge oftheseextinct creatureson studiesofAfrican elephants,mostofwhichlivein arid environments resembling theSonoran desert. So, Martin argued,an effort to restorethe ecologyofthe Malpai borderlands shouldincludea place forproboscideans. I wish to show thatMartin'sconcernforthe loss and possible returnof the mammothsis not an eccentricnor even a novelone. American naturalistsinthelateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuriesexcavatedmanybones ofthesegiantcreatures ,and the possible existenceofsuch animals,whetherin the presentor the dimpast, profoundly affected theirconceptionsofthecontinent 's naturalheritage.Mostsignificantly, they imagined therelationship thatearlynativeAmerican peopleshad withthemammoths, a relationship thatstillabsorbsscientists today. I believethat Martin'sproposalto reintroduce the elephanttoAmericais motivated notsimply byecologyorwildlife conservation, but can onlybe understoodwithina complexof ideas about theplace ofEuro-Americans withrespectto indigenous NorthAmericanpeoples and animals, ideas indelibly markedbycolonialism. Ever since AldoLeopold,Americanconservationecologists and popularenvironmentalists have sharedthebasic goalofrestoring ecosystemstotheirnaturalornativestate,toa balance ofanimaland plantpopulationsas theywerebefore thedisruptionsofmodernhumans . Leopoldinthe 1930s leda movement to end predatorextermination programsaimed at wolvesand grizzly bears, because withouttheselargeanimalsno foodweb could be complete. He advanced his ideas witha moral,not merelya scientific, agenda, as partofwhat he called a "land ethic. " Yet Martin'selephantproposal complicatesthis ethic. Should a species, or ratheran order,Proboscidea,whichhas longbeen extinctin North America, nonethelessbe regardedas Sayre 65 native,as deservingofa restoration effort similarto those underway for other"charismatic megafauna* intheSouthwest, such as the Mexicangreywolfor the Californiacondor? Does the absence ofthe mammoth representa deficitin the balance of nature,one thathumanscan repay?Professor Martinanswers Yes,and I believehedoes so notonlybecause theelephantwould be a means to correctovergrazing bynon-native cattle,but because ofhis earlier,provocative theorythat Proboscideansin North Americawereforced intoextinction byhumans. "Prehistoric Overkill," the titleofMartin'sgroundbreaking 1967 article, has becomethenamefor histheory aboutthePleistoceneextinctions ofNorth American megafauna, including mammothsand mastodons.3 Carl Sauer, thedean ofAmerican culturalgeographers , had actuallyproposedtheidea in the 1950s, and I will show thatmanyelementsofthe theorydate to the eighteenth century. It is Martin'sscientific expertiseand persistence ,however,thathave broughtthe notioncredibility, if notconsensus,amongpaleoecologists and anthropologists. The theoryofprehistoric overkill has drawnevidenceout ofmany areas ofscientific research,fromlake-bedpollenrevealingthe vegetationofice age NorthAmerica,to radiocarbondatingof mammoth bonesand scat,toDNAanalysismeasuringAmerican Indians'genetic variancefrom indigenousSiberians. Martinhas assembledthismultidisciplinary evidenceovermorethanthirty years,and I cannothope to summarizeit all here. Briefly put, however,Martinchallengedthe competing theory that the demiseoftheProboscideaand otherPleistocenemegafaunawas a resultofclimaticand associated environmental changes. He arguedthatwhereasanyclimaticchangewouldbe expectedto affectall sizes of animals, nearlyall the extinctspecies from 8,000 to 15,000 yearsago werelargeherbivores likethe mammoth .Althoughthe popularimageofthewoollymammoth, its hair hangingnearlyto theground,associates itwithfrigid ice age habitats,in factit was the mastodonthat livedin colder coniferous forests, whilemammoth speciesincluding Mammuthus columbiand Mammuthus jeffersoni thrived in temperategrasslands .4 Since as the glaciersretreatedall typesoftemperate habitatsgrew,"mastodonsofthenortheastern state. . . elected extinction afterthe climatechangedforthe better, whiletheir range,and thatofthe menwho huntedthem,was expanding" ("Prehistoric Overkill" 63). Martinturnedthesearch forcauses from climateto predation ,and tothearrivalofhumansin North America.According to a longstandingconsensus amonganthropologists, humans 66 TheJournal forEarlyModern Cultural Studies didnotliveinAmerica before about 11,000yearsago,whenthey arrivedvia a land...